Congo fever in Glasgow

5th October 2012

A man aged 38 is in a critical condition in isolation in Glasgow’s Gartnavel General Hospital after being confirmed as having Crimean-Congo Viral Haemorrhagic Fever.

He was admitted to hospital less than three hours after returning to Glasgow on an Emirates flight from Dubai and is being treated in the city’s Brownlee unit, which specialises in infectious diseases. The tick-borne tropical disease is rare in Western Europe and is fatal in up to 30% of cases, though the risk of person-to-person transmission is extremely low.